Blender's 50 Most Awesomely Dead Rock Stars

Charles in Charge: Charles’s posthumous plaudits were both lengthened and amplified by the release, four months after his death, of the highly successful biopic Ray, which reminded audiences worldwide of the singer’s genre-hopping talent, amazing rags-to-riches story—and also of his womanizing, heroin-injecting ways.

Get Rich or Die Tryin': Charles’ 2002 CD, Thanks for Bringing Love Around Again, didn’t even chart, but after his death the duets CD Genius Loves Company hit Billboard’s No. 1, sold more than 3 million copies and earned him eight posthumous Grammys. In September 2005, Rhino Records released another duets CD, Genius & Friends, and a 146-track box set, Pure Genius. The following month, Charles appeared on Forbes’s list of the Top-Earning Dead Celebrities, with an income of $7.88 million.

Ray Charles on Their Mind': Last year, residents of Tampa, Florida, objected to a plan to rename a street after Charles, suggesting that, since the neighborhood was already rife with drug dealers, associating it with a former smack addict probably wasn’t going to help much.

Dough from Woe: Worth less than $1 million when he died, Cobain’s future royalties were valued at $100 million.

Smells Like Mean Spirit: Posthumous Nirvana releases have been dogged by undignified wrangling over Nirvana LLC, the partnership established by widow Courtney Love, drummer Dave Grohl and bassist Krist Novoselic to control the band’s musical legacy. While 1994’s Unplugged in New York and the live compilation From the Muddy Banks of the Wishkah proved no problem, the band’s final studio track, “You Know You’re Right,” emerged on a 2002 greatest-hits set only in return for Love’s handing over some demos for use on the box set With the Lights Out.

Kurt on Camera: While the documentary Kurt & Courtney investigated conspiracy theories surrounding Cobain’s death, Gus Van Sant’s Last Days—a meandering account of the death of a junkie rock idol called Blake, loosely based on Cobain—might have been more to Kurt’s taste.

Dear Diary: In 2002, Love received a reported $4 million for the rights to publish Cobain’s journals, even though one entry cites “the rape of my personal thoughts” as Cobain’s reason for his dislike of fame.

Life After Death: Hendrix’s recording career lasted less than four years, but it’s still among the zeniths of electric-guitar playing. But self-appointed “musical curator” Alan Douglas diluted his legacy by releasing album after album of outtakes, unfinished tapes and live recordings for several decades.

The Vault: In the ’90s, Hendrix’s late father, Al, and stepsister Janie, funded by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, successfully sued for control of the Hendrix archives. They formed the company Experience Hendrix and have kept a tight rein on the catalogue, raking in over $50 million from album sales, merchandise and ads from Pepsi and Audi. By 2001, Hendrix—worth only $500,000 when he died—was No. 5 on Forbes magazine’s list of the top-earning dead celebrities. He has since dropped out of the Top 10, and in 2004, Janie was unsuccessfully sued by Jimi’s younger brother Leon, who had been written out of their father’s will.

Lasting Legacy: His “Star Spangled Banner” has become audio shorthand for the ’60s, and there have been a pile of Hendrix biographies, but Andre 3000’s planned Hendrix biopic seems to have fallen through.

Life After Death: In death, Tupac became a T-shirt and poster icon—hip-hop’s answer to James Dean—and one of the biggest earners in music. In 2003 his estate brought in $12 million, a stark contrast to the $150,000 in his bank account when he was shot.

America's Most Wanted: Tupac released just four albums in his lifetime—but at least 14 have appeared since then. Before his death, he had recorded an estimated 200 unreleased tracks, which are now controlled by his mother, Afeni Shakur. Although many of these releases fall well below the standards Tupac himself set, recent Eminem-assisted albums Resurrection and Loyal to the Game sold more than 1 million copies each.

Peer Plaudits: Tupac looms large over the generation of rappers who followed him: Eminem says he’s “the greatest songwriter who ever lived.” His mother has also sought to glorify his name, founding the Tupac Amaru Shakur Center for the Arts in Stone Mountain, Georgia. Currently offering dance, vocal and yoga classes, a seven-foot bronze statue of her son stands in the gardens.

Print the Legend: Reggae’s heavyweight champion had to wait for death to make him a U.S. superstar. The week he was diagnosed with cancer, he played Madison Square Garden—opening for the Commodores. But the posthumous collection Legend has sold more than 17 million copies worldwide; his estate, controlled by his widow, Rita, and his 11 children, earns some $6 million a year; and his catalogue has been assessed at a value of $100 million.

No Woman, No Cry: Shortly after Marley’s death, widow Rita unknowingly signed away numerous rights to his $30 million estate and had to spend millions in lawsuits to establish herself and Marley’s children as sole controllers of his name and likeness. But Rita now controls a record company, museum, guided tours, a music festival and several foundations.

Life After Death: Universal, which owns Marley’s work on Island, has recently purchased his earlier Jamaican catalogue, and a new edition of the definitive biography, Catch a Fire, is about to be published. Yet beyond the faithful, the forecast is cloudy: recent projects intended to introduce Marley to new listeners have been duds.

The Dead Bill Gates: Garcia’s estate, valued at $9.9 million at his death, generates millions more annually through recordings, artwork and licensed goods—from area rugs to Clos du Blois’s J. Garcia wine.

Celebrity Deathmatch: Garcia’s estate has been viciously contested by ex-wives, lovers and pals. Captain Trips was posthumously sued by his personal trainer as well as by an acupuncturist, his office manager and a guy who said he babysat him during bad acid trips.

Noodlers Unite: Garcia inspired the entire jam band counterculture, which spawned Dave Matthews and Phish, as well as the worst band names ever, from String Cheese Incident to the Disco Biscuits.

Make It Stop: Beyond the usual icon’s legacy—three biographies, a new biopic project improbably produced by Malcolm in the Middle actor Justin Berfield—the homegrown Garcia recording industry stands as an ideal for post-mortem stardom. The Dead recorded just about everything, with no concerts alike, and the stock of unreleased Dead recordings is valued as high as $400 milion, including a catalogue of 500 Garcia solo concert recordings.

Shot You Down: Chapman said in 2004 that in killing Lennon he intended “to steal [his] fame.” But death proved the genesis of the Lennon myth, and the Lennon business: His estate earned $22 million in 2005 alone.

Oh, Yoko: Lennon’s profile is sustained both by continuing public fascination and the hands-on management of his musical legacy by his widow, Yoko Ono. Immediately after his death, the single “(Just Like) Starting Over” and the album it was taken from, Double Fantasy, reached No. 1 in the Billboard charts. His name has since been attached to everything from children’s toys (the “Real Love” range based on his sketches of animals) to Liverpool’s John Lennon Airport (slogan: “Above us only sky”).

Peer Plaudits: His violent death cemented Lennon’s status as a counterculture icon—in spite of biographies that depict his last years as a tangle of drug addiction, self-doubt and an obsession with numerology. Hollywood is now taking an interest with Chapter 27, starring Jared Leto as Mark Chapman. The producers might hope it fares better than Lennon, the Yoko-endorsed Broadway musical that closed in September 2005 after just six weeks.

Get Dead and Start Earning: Culturally, the King’s real reign was a mere 18 months—from 1956 to ’57. Dead, he earns 10 to 20 times more than he did alive: With licensing, merchandising and CD sales (including three recent box sets and a No. 1 hits CD), the Elvis industry is worth $45 million a year.

Life After Death: Gruesome narcotic and dietary details of the King’s twilight years emerged around his demise, later followed by Albert Goldman’s muckraking biography. But more recent critical reassessments like Peter Guralnick’s scholarly two-volume study have redeemed Elvis’s artistic legacy. Graceland draws 600,000 pilgrims a year; there are 500 active fan clubs and 35,000 professional impersonators; and several organized religions have formed around Elvis, including the First Presleyterian Church of Elvis the Divine.

King, Inc.: Elvis’s estate was managed by his sole heir, Lisa Marie Presley, but in 2004 she sold 85% of his assets to sports- and music-promoting kingpin Robert F.X. Sillerman. He plans to probe Europe, Australia and Japan to find new markets for Elvis, the blue-chip stock of dead rockers.